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TROLOGUE TO Jl SYSTEM 
OF THILOSOPHY FROM THE 
STANDPOINT OF THE THEIST 



George Henry Dole 



NEW YORK 
THE NEW-CHURCH BOARD OF PUBLICATION 

3 West Twenty-Ninth Street 

1903 



^ 



; 
J3LA*R It YYo. No. 

*)«-« It 



Copyright, iooj, by 
George Henry Dole 



P %E F *A C E 

IN ATTEMPTING to search out first causes, 
science, fearing the introduction of the uncer- 
tain, has rejected all contributions from reli- 
gion. Indeed, this feeling has been carried so 
far, that God is not mentioned in science, ex- 
cept as unknowable or unnecessary. Religion, 
fearing the destruction of so-called "faith," and 
the overthrow of favored doctrine, has rejected 
^science, and slowly and stubbornly granted 
concessions to its conclusions. This separa- 
tion and antagonism reduce science to gross 
materialism, and religion on one hand to irra- 
tional dogmatism, and on the other to scien- 
tific skepticism or even agnosticism. 

MORE RECENTLY, under the influence of 
the new renaissance and the feeling that all 
truth is a unit of harmonious parts, there has 
been a growing tendency to recognize that 
true science and genuine religion are in per- 
fect agreement and mutually helpful. 



4 PREFACE 

IT is not the intention to elaborate here a 
system with its details, but merely to state 
some fundamental principles, and to add a few 
thoughts in the line of the general position 
to which advancing times are progressing, 
and where may be realized a greater and 
even satisfying light. 

GEORGE HENRY DOLE. 
Bath, Me. 



CONTENTS 



Preface 




page 3 


Chapter I 


Evolution .... 


7 


II 


Harmony in the Cosmic Process 


17 


III 


The Moral Motive in the Cosmic 






Process .... 


24 


IV 


Divine Selection . 


38 


V 


Projected Efficiency 


43 


VI 


Internal Realities . 


50 


VII 


The Last Link 


60 


VIII 


Reality of the Unseen World 


71 


IX 




82 


X 


God Knowable 


90 


XI 


The Absoluteness of Right anc 


I 




Wrong .... 


100 


XII 


The Office of Revelation . 


113 



CHAPTER I 

Evolution 

IT HAS been the work of the last 
century to present a nearly complete 
theory of Evolution, and to formu- 
late a chain of reasoning that up- 
holds the do6lrine that every genus and 
species of plants and animals are derived 
from simple forms through gradual 
modification of functions. 

The first suggestion of this doclrine 
threw the religious world into conster- 
nation. At first its advocates did not 
openly attack the fundamentals of reli- 
gion, but with ominous reticence in re- 
gard to the spiritual and the Divine, or 
with the subtlety of cautious but facti- 
tious wisdom pleading them unknown, 
they proceeded to elaborate a theory 
that, if true, not only undermines all 
religion, but so thoroughly denies God 
as to render Him unnecessary. 



8 DIVINE SELECTION 

The religiously inclined saw in Evo- 
lution, with its theories of " natural se- 
lection " and " survival of the fittest," a 
most dangerous enemy, threatening to 
do away with religion, spirituality, the 
Scriptures, and God, as the impressions 
of superstition made in the childhood of 
our race. 

Evolution was too formidably in- 
trenched behind apparent fact and crafty 
reason to admit of absolute defeat Avith 
the weapons then at hand. Some 
scoffed, others ridiculed ; but never in 
the world's history have these resorts 
stayed the progress of good or evil. 
Yet here and there a stalwart nature 
has risen and dealt the theory a stag- 
gering blow, from which it has tried 
to recover by shifting position or by 
re-intrenchment. 

Nevertheless, Evolution has extended 
its lines until it is accepted by many 
among all thinking classes. There are 
many of the religious who accept it, 



EVOLUTION 9 

in one form or another, as the Cre- 
ator's method of bringing the universe 
into existence as it is to-day ; though 
it is a little difficult to comprehend 
how a system of creation that is all- 
sufficient in itself could be a method 
employed by any one. 

Yet there has ever been a feeling 
of dissatisfaction, a sense that Evolu- 
tion is not all, that it is sadly inade- 
quate. Consequently Evolution has 
made its way against a reluctance al- 
most universal, and has been accepted, 
openly by some and tacitly by others, 
because backed by so formidable an 
array of apparent fact and contrived 
reason that no one has been found who 
could satisfactorily defeat it all along 
the line and at the same time offer a 
better solution of phenomena. 

In this regard it may be said that the 
favor with which Evolution is met exists 
more from the lack of any other well- 
defined system than from its own merits. 



io DIVINE SELECTION 

The most prominent defecl: in Evo- 
lution is that it does not go deep 
enough. It is too superficial. It pur- 
ports to give a history of outward 
effects, but openly avows that it can- 
not explain their inner causes. And 
so far as the causes are approached, 
the explanation is ridiculously inade- 
quate to the effect, involving even a 
greater mystery than the cause itself. 
For it is easier to conceive of the gov- 
erning intelligence, order, power, truth, 
love, and righteousness as existing in a 
personal God who creates from Himself, 
than it is to imagine these wonderful 
things existing in the " primeval units," 
which hypothesis assumes the very 
thing to be proved. That society with 
its marvelous developments, scientific, 
civil, and spiritual, should have started 
by the " fortuitous concourse of atoms," 
is more strange than the creation which 
it cannot explain. And when we come 
to the application of the principles of 



EVOLUTION ii 

Evolution to social problems, and wit- 
ness the final conclusions in regard to 
the origin of right, good, spirituality, 
conceptions of God, and the like, we 
are led so far away from the possible, 
and so deeply into the absurd and pro- 
fane, that only the most sordid devotee, 
the shallow, and the credulous can en- 
tertain the do6lrine. 

The same causes that started cre- 
ation have continued it, even to bring- 
ing forth its final form, which is the 
righteous and holy Christian, with a 
rational comprehension of a spiritual 
world, aspirations for eternal life, a liv- 
ing faith in God, and inmost desire to 
become more and more His image and 
likeness. 

Now if fortune began creation, it 
has been by luck and chance that each 
step in the upward development was 
made ; and luck, chance, and fortune 
are the sum of all intelligence, design, 
wisdom, love, and life that is or is to 



12 DIVINE SELECTION 

come. In which case the essential na- 
ture of the creative power and the 
supreme intelligence is luck, for the 
first cause must terminate in the last 
effect. The first cause and all deriv- 
ative or subsequent causes must be the 
same in essence. 

If luck and chance had failed in one 
instance in the long line of develop- 
ment, creation would have ended in 
chaos. If chance started creation it is 
by chance that oaks bear acorns and 
not beech-nuts, and that beech-nuts 
grow into beech-trees rather than into 
oaks. It is by fortune that of the 
myriads of plants and animals each 
bears its kind, and not one mistake 
ever occurs. It is by luck that the 
universe is kept in its order, and law 
itself is merely such good fortune that 
it never varies. These are legitimate, 
inevitable conclusions from the premi- 
ses of Evolution, to which every close 
and consistent thinker must be forced. 



EVOLUTION 13 

It is creation itself upon which the 
scholarship of the world should cen- 
ter, and of which it should seek a 
rational explanation, for the evident 
reason that the same principles are 
applicable to each step in its develop- 
ment. Since the superstructure can be 
no more stable than the foundation 
upon which it rests, we should not be 
surprised at the revulsion that the 
theory of Evolution meets among the 
more discerning thinkers. For it is this 
irrational quality carried throughout 
Evolution that causes a great body of 
the religious and intelligent to hold the 
theory in abeyance as something yet 
inadequate and unsatisfactory. 

The unmodified law of the " survival 
of the fittest " is instinctively seen as 
pure selfishness. It does not answer 
back to the unselfishness in human 
kind. It is not a human explanation. 
God is good, we feel. His works are 
good. But if the cold and cruel strug- 



14 DIVINE SELECTION 

gle for self-existence is the energizing 
and inmost thing, nature's beauty is 
false, the song of the stars is a dirge, 
and the grand anthem of the universe 
is a rasping chord. If Evolution, with 
its theory of " natural selection " and 
" survival of the fittest," with its theory 
of the " fortuitous concourse of atoms," 
and the final dissolution of the uni- 
verse into the nebulas from which it 
sprang, and the consequent obliteration 
of human kind, tells the whole story, 
mankind has been all wrong, and they 
who rejoice in beauty, love, righteous- 
ness, eternal life, and God, are doomed 
to final disappointment and sorrow, 
for what they hold most dear, and 
regard as an expression of the wisdom 
and love of their Creator, are but as the 
smooth fur and soft purring of ravenous 
animals, rending not only the body, but 
tearing apart the tenderest feelings of 
faith and love, and devouring all human 
hopes. If such theories were to pre- 



EVOLUTION 15 

vaii, the Harpies and cannibal Cyclops 
are not fabulous creatures of ancient 
times, but real monsters dwelling in 
civilized countries, still satiating their 
cruel appetites with human flesh. 

Mr. Drummond saw this, and endeav- 
ored to repair the dei'ecl: by supplement- 
ing the struggle for self by the strug- 
gle for the lives of others, as observed 
in the surrender of life-force by plants 
and animals in the propagation of their 
kind. And others, feeling deeply the 
wrong of Evolution as taught by the 
school of Messrs. Darwin, Huxley, Tyn- 
dall, Spencer, and Haeckel, have worked 
to modify the theory ; so that already, in 
these rapidly changing times, the old 
school of Evolution is quite antiquated. 

Strong and godly men have taken 
the more likely part of Evolution as 
devised by the Sensists, and used it 
not to confirm materialism and excuse 
agnosticism, but as a means of advanc- 
ing nearer to the Divine, into clearer 



16 DIVINE SELECTION 

light, and into more intelligent faith. 
With unsurpassed skill they have used 
Evolution more effectually in proving 
what it was intended to disprove than 
did its inventors in establishing mate- 
rialism. 

It is not only gratifying, but surpris- 
ingly so, to notice how righteous men 
have step by step gone on. Modifica- 
tion upon modification has produced in 
advanced thought as much difference 
between evolutionary reasonings now 
and a few years ago as Evolution is 
claimed to have wrought between man 
and the ape. A few more Drummonds, 
Mivarts, Fiskes, and there will be left 
none of the sad conclusions of ma- 
terialistic Evolution, which regards 
man soulless, the universe Godless, 
and crowns development not with the 
break of a radiant world of eternal life 
and beauty, but with the black pall of 
" omnipresent death." 



M 



CHAPTER II 

Harmony 

in THE 

Cosmic Process 

R. HUXLEY, in his address 
at Oxford in 1893, says that 
•'the cosmic process has no 
sort of relation to moral ends." 
In commenting' upon this Mr. Fiske 
says : " Most assuredly survival of the 
fittest, as such, has no sort of relation 
to moral ends." * 

That Mr. Huxley should fall into 
this error is not surprising, but that 
Mr. Fiske should pass over its fatal 
conclusions without bringing to the 
surface its self-stultifying fallacy is dif- 
ficult to understand. 

The position is rightly taken that, if 
the moral motive is not found in Evo- 
lution, it does not exist in its produces, 

* " Through Nature to God," page 77. 



18 DIVINE SELECTION 

consequently the moral motive does not 
exist in man. Or, if the moral motive 
does not exist in Evolution and does 
exist in man, Evolution is fundamentally 
a fallacy, for that which has no moral 
motive in itself could never produce 
one out of itself. The least knowledge 
of the relation of cause and effecl; pro- 
hibits one holding at the same time 
that there is a moral motive in any 
created thing and none in the cosmic 
process that produces it. 

Yet Mr. Huxley clearly sees that 
there is a moral motive in man, though 
he designates it by so superficial a 
word as " ethical." He admits the self- 
ishness in " natural selection " and the 
moral in man, and explains the exist- 
ence of the two by saying that " the so- 
cial progress means a checking of the 
cosmic process at every step, and the 
substitution for it of another, which may 
be called the ethical process." 

The fallacy of such a theory lies in 



THE COSMIC PROCESS 19 

the fa6t that there would then be two 
processes of development in nature that 
are fundamentally and diametrically op- 
posed. And need we go further in un- 
folding this illogical proposition than 
to say that the second process is even 
evolved out of the first? 

If God made nature and man, and 
God be good, the moral motive is as 
fully present in all natural processes as 
it is in man. It may not be so evident ; 
it may not be so quick in operation ; 
but it is there as surely and fully. 

A right view of nature forbids that 
we draw conclusions from superficial 
observations, and requires that we look 
deeply into it and broadly upon it. In 
its mode of growth a tree may be 
said to be selfish, because it regards 
only itself. But the tree has no power 
over its growth. It is absolutely a 
thing of condition, receiving and swell- 
ing with life over which it has no con- 
trol. In determining its relation to 



2o DIVINE SELECTION 

selfishness we must look to the source 
of its life and observe whether self- 
ishness is there. This is determined 
by inquiring into the uses to which a 
tree is put. Are its uses all for itself, 
or are they all for other things ? When 
we search this question deeply the 
appearance changes entirely, for we 
come into the reality. The tree is of no 
use to itself except that it may grow, 
which self-use is fundamental to all 
use. Further, the tree spends its whole 
energy in forming alluvium, in pro- 
viding shelter and food for animals, and 
in multiform uses to man. The greater 
law of usefulness to others comprehends 
the law of self-use, and makes the ex- 
istence of a tree absolutely unselfish. 

We may look at the subject in an- 
other way. As a matter of fact the 
tree regards nothing, neither its own 
growth nor its unselfish uses, for it has 
no mind essential to conscious thought, 
from which comes regard. The selfish- 



THE COSMIC PROCESS 21 

ness or unselfishness is in the Creator 
who made it and propagates it. Since 
the tree serves itself only that it may 
serve others, that is, its existence is 
wholly one of service to other things, 
we are forced to conclude that the 
Creator is unselfish, and the law of the 
tree's existence is unselfish. 

The same reasoning applies to ani- 
mals. Though they are of a higher or- 
der of life, they are as bound to their 
instincts as a tree is to its roots. They 
can no more transcend their instincts 
than vegetation can its order. Their 
self-love simply perpetuates their exist- 
ence, which is fundamental to their 
unselfish uses. The greater law of 
use here also nullifies selfishness, and 
makes nature, because of her universal 
service, as unselfish as her uses are 
general. 

It ought not to be difficult to per- 
ceive that an infinitely good Creator 
can make neither nature nor man self- 



22 DIVINE SELECTION 

ish in their broader and essential rela- 
tions, and that no unperverted power 
or law that is from Him is other than 
unselfish. 

There is nothing clearer to rational 
intelligence than that, if the moral mo- 
tive cannot be seen in nature strug- 
gling as in man for the ascendancy 
and step by step securing its purpose, 
we may know our view of nature is 
yet superficial and its language an un- 
known tongue. For the reason that 
compels the acknowledgment of a Di- 
vine Being as the Supreme Architect, 
equally forces upon us that when cre- 
ation was finished, " God saw that it was 
good." And good can be predicated 
of nothing that is without a moral mo- 
tive, or essentially selfish. 

The doctrine of the "unity of plan" 
in creation, which Mr. Huxley and 
other Evolutionists have urged and il- 
lustrated, and which is generally ac- 
cepted, cannot be true if man is devel- 



THE COSMIC PROCESS 23 

oped by a process contrary to that 
under which other things are devel- 
oped. Creation is not then essentially 
a unit, but a dual. Not only is it dou- 
ble at the foundation, but being double 
and antagonistic, there is no such thing 
as a cosmic process, giving " cosmic " 
its right meaning of harmonious. 

It seems that Mr. Huxley has finally 
worked out two antagonistic yet fun- 
damental elements in nature, quite in 
keeping with the old notion of a per- 
sonal Devil from eternity and a per- 
sonal God, which to the serious can be 
none the less ludicrous. 



CHAPTER III 

The Moral Motive 

in THE 

Cosmic Process 



M 



AN believes in God intuitive- 
ly because God is. He does 
not doubt His existence and 
government until he has im- 
bibed falsities from without. 

When moral men began to give way 
to the claims of Evolution, they im- 
mediately asked, "What relation does 
the theory bear to the Creator ? What 
relation does He bear to it ? Where 
is the moral motive in the cosmic pro- 
cess?" Certainly if Evolution is of God, 
His hand is there. The moral motive 
must be sought, like all motives, with- 
in the law as the end in view. The 
motive is the soul of law. The law is 
the means through which the motive 
is accomplished. The moral motive 



THE MORAL MOTIVE 25 

must exist in the first incentive, and 
be demonstrated in the final purpose. 
" Every tree is known by his own 
fruit." 

That natural selection, or as expressed 
in the less apt phrase, survival of the 
fittest, is, with right interpretation, a 
law of nature, there is no question. It 
is even a law of the spirit. 

Natural selection, or survival of the 
fittest, may, in special cases and in lim- 
ited degree, work out results in a short 
time ; but the greater results, both in 
nature and in spirit, extend over cen- 
turies and even ages. 

Natural selection operates in the 
natural and the spiritual world in a 
similar way because all law is an in- 
strument of the Divine will and serves 
the Creator's purpose. The Creator 
does nothing arbitrarily. Since He acts 
through law on each plane, whether 
low or high, law appears to do its 
own selecting and to work as of it- 



26 DIVINE SELECTION 

self. With the meaning that the Cre- 
ator works through constituted agen- 
cies natural selection is a true state- 
ment of a fa6l. If one can bring him- 
self to see that God is essentially in- 
finite love, in which all power initially 
is, and that infinite wisdom is simply 
His love's mode of action, in which 
all law is contained, there will be no 
substantial error in his conception of 
natural selection. 

In accepting survival of the fittest 
as a law, it is important to know and 
define what the " fittest " is. What is 
it that nature saves? If the fittest sur- 
vive, such it is her purpose to save, 
for surely nature's purpose is wrought 
out as well in securing all her designs 
as in the exaction of penalties for not 
fulfilling her laws. 

We cannot understand by survival 
of the fittest merely the fittest to sur- 
vive in the sense of the fittest to exist 
in and for self. If this were what it 



THE MORAL MOTIVE 27 

means, development would have stopped 
long ago. Progress would have been 
checked in the first instance. For the 
conclusion of Evolution is that the uni- 
verse, having run its course, will re- 
turn to the nebula from which it came. 
In which case nebula is better fitted to 
survive than anything formed from it. 

Again, it is axiomatic that the sim- 
pler the form the better fitted it is to 
exist. That nebula is better fitted to 
survive (in the sense of existing) than 
rock, and rock than plants, and plants 
than animals, need no comment. 

Very early, therefore, in the applica- 
tion of the principle we come upon 
well defined limitations, which could 
be multiplied almost without limit. 
The phrase, " survival of the fittest," 
is more suggestive of the struggle for 
existence than is the term " natural 
selection," and refers ostensibly rather 
to that phase of nature's fa<5ts. There 
also it has extensive limitations. 



28 DIVINE SELECTION 

There are degrees and kinds of life 
that are brought but little, or not at 
all, into competition. For example, be- 
tween grass and the animals that feed 
upon it, there is practically no compe- 
tition, for the more grass the more an- 
imals, and animals do not diminish the 
grass-growing area. There is no con- 
flict between rock and the vegetation 
that grows upon it. 

It should also be observed that the 
struggle for existence naturally tempers 
itself in certain cases ; for, if the herbiv- 
orous animals are too much diminished, 
the carnivorous must suffer correspond- 
ingly for want of food. Such extensive 
limitations to the universality of the 
law of the survival of the fittest should 
be taken into consideration. 

Survival of the fittest applies with 
less qualification to the many seeds 
that cannot all grow, to plants strug- 
gling for space, and to animals seeking 
food in times of scarcity and want. 



THE MORAL MOTIVE 29 

The struggle then is even unto death, 
though much less general than it is 
severe. 

Desperate as the struggle may be, 
there is yet a moral motive within it. 
Says Mr. Fiske, " Beauty and ugliness, 
virtue and vice are alike to it " (Sur- 
vival of the Fittest).* This in special 
cases may be an apparent truth, but as 
a general principle it must be denied, 
even as an appearance. 

Survival of the fittest, so far as it is 
a law, saves the strongest, the hardiest, 
the best of both plants and animals, 
and in so doing it saves the best fitted 
for use. Herein is the moral motive, 
for it would not be moral if it saved 
the ill-fitted rather than the best-fitted 
in the kingdom of uses. The law op- 
erating among plants and animals has 
saved those that respond most fully to 
human uses. Operating among mankind 
it brings human powers, faculties, and 

* " Through Nature to God, "page 77. 



30 DIVINE SELECTION 

energies into action whereby they are 
developed and advanced, and brought 
by the very laws of nature more into 
Divine order, for he is most in Divine 
order who is best fitted to survive. 

Survival of the fittest, in the sense in 
which it applies, is not only a means 
of development, but it is also an ex- 
pression of Divine economy and mercy 
and the all-governing law of use. It 
removes the debauchee, the enemy of 
society, the sickly, the weak, the licen- 
tious, the habitual transgressor of any 
law, natural or spiritual — for these can- 
not propagate their kind as can the 
strong, the healthy, the righteous. The 
idle, sinful, and debauched are the first 
to succumb to disease. Mr. Fiske sadly 
misses the truth and falls into grave er- 
ror in thinking that beauty and ugliness, 
virtue and vice are alike to the law of 
the survival of the fittest. For it is by 
this very process that the vicious are 
slowly but surely eliminated and the or- 



THE MORAL MOTIVE 31 

derly and the suitable are saved. It 
should be very clearly distinguished that 
survival of the fittest is true, not in the 
sense of fittest merely to exist, but fit- 
test for use. Natural law, as it is but 
the outward expression of spiritual law, 
works out the fulfillment of the Divine 
law that " Evil shall slay the wicked," 
" The righteous shall inherit the land." 
The struggle for existence among 
the healthy, law-abiding, energetic, and 
wise is a means not only of develop- 
ment, but a source of the greatest en- 
joyment through activity and the con- 
quest of difficulty. 

We can see in the law a Divine 
provision for human as well as for 
general development. It is a merciful 
law, because it eliminates the unfitted, 
lessens pain by removing the weak and 
the sickly, and provides the minimum 
of suffering. The moral motive in cos- 
mic processes is everywhere present in 
nature's processes, because there is no 



32 DIVINE SELECTION 

law that does not work out a final 
good and the highest welfare of man, 
who is the end of creation and for 
whose service all things are and were 
created. We are obliged, therefore, to 
conclude, if we look over a greater 
area of phenomena, that " beauty and 
ugliness, virtue and vice " are not alike 
to natural selection, but that the true 
interpretation of the law is that it ex- 
alts beauty and removes ugliness, and 
that it perpetuates virtue and eliminates 
vice. 

If we confine our view to the small 
arena of one plant struggling for ex- 
istence against another, or one animal 
fighting against another for his food, 
our conclusions must be as erroneous 
as our horizon is narrow. We must 
look over considerable territory to as- 
certain the dire<5t course of a river. 
We cannot judge of the moral motive 
in cosmic processes from a battle be- 
tween wolves. We must look to the 



THE MORAL MOTIVE 33 

general and final result to know the 
meaning of the struggle for existence. 
Can we judge mankind to be without 
moral motive because of a street fight 
between ruffians, or competition in trade, 
or because one drives the crows out 
of his corn, or gets his bread by the 
sweat of his brow ? 

It has been well suggested that the 
moral motive is evident in plants and 
animals surrendering their substance 
and life in the reproduction of their 
kind. But there is a moral motive 
deeper and broader than this. 

Viewing nature from the beginning 
we observe in the vaster plan that em- 
braces all, the strongest evidence of the 
moral motive. The rock surrendered 
itself to the sea and the atmosphere 
to form soil. Myriads of plants and 
animals daily surrendered their bodies 
to form alluvium ; and the sacrifice to 
nature's purpose was so complete that 
nothing was wanting to form the basis 



34 DIVINE SELECTION 

for the final life-forms. The earth pro- 
duces vegetation; vegetation provides 
food and shelter for the animal king- 
dom ; and all offer themselves for the 
service of mankind, the crowning form 
in the ascending scale. And moral 
man offers himself as the servant of 
Him who " came not to be ministered 
unto, but to minister." 

There is set to every created thing 
the seal of Him who holds the servant 
of all the greatest of all. No other 
conclusion can be rightly drawn than 
that a plan of use runs through all 
things and binds them in mutual serv- 
ice and unity. Forms have come and 
gone, but the useful in each age sur- 
vive for their use, and in the end the 
useful for the end survive. It is an 
inexorable law that what does not yield 
to use in the kingdom of mutual serv- 
ice is eliminated. 

It does not seem to require a very 
deep insight into the operations of na* 



THE MORAL MOTIVE 35 

ture to discern back of all the central 
motive, the will of God, working at every 
point for the final good of human kind, 
and bringing forth and saving that in 
society which is capable of receiving, 
and will receive in most perfect form, 
the human essentials of His own na- 
ture. 

It is concluded, therefore, that the 
survival of the fittest is truly a law, if 
by " fittest " is meant the useful. Sur- 
vival of the fittest has its limitation, 
but the Survival of the Useful is a 
statement of universal law that is true 
and absolute. When we see the gov- 
erning principle of cosmic processes 
working out this purpose, the Sur- 
vival of the Useful, the moral motive 
is everywhere present and evident in 
cause and effect. 

But, it may be said, there are the 
useless thistles and thorns, the vulture 
and the tiger. Yet this should not ob- 
scure the law. Thorns and thistles in 



36 DIVINE SELECTION 

human character do not take away 
the moral motive in man. The vulture 
and tiger in human disposition do not 
make men all ravenous and fierce. 
They rather give the ground for re- 
sistance, against which is reaction and 
development. The do6lrine of contrasts 
is now well known and generally rec- 
ognized. Were there not the selfish 
and immoral, the moral would not ap- 
pear. Nature which is a parable of 
man, must, like him, have both wheat 
and tares; yet alike in both the moral 
motive has the ascendancy. A right 
standpoint of view enables us to see 
clearly that the moral motive in all 
times has struggled through nature in 
all respects as it does through mankind, 
and has caused to survive the useful 
in fulfillment of the Divine purpose. 

We must not linger in the single 
isolated struggle for existence, nor must 
we mistake a long succession of strug- 
gles for the interpretation of the cos- 



THE MORAL MOTIVE 37 

mic process, but rather search for the 
motive that works out through the 
struggle. The mind must comprehend 
not only individuals, generations, and 
ages, but also whole periods of time. 
Then the moral motive, which is the 
service of man, naturally and spiritually, 
and thus the will of God, is as surely 
present and dominant in nature as it is 
in man or in God's kingdom. Finally 
it may be said that since the cosmic 
process secures moral ends, it must 
recognize the moral. The better and 
eternal expression of its law is The 
Survival of the Useful, 



CHAPTER IV 

Divine 
Selection 

THE Survival of the Useful be- 
ing a true statement of the law, 
rather than " survival of the fit- 
test," as Mr. Spencer has called 
it, suggests that Mr. Darwin's compan- 
ion phrase, " natural selection," is also 
wanting. Yet Mr. Darwin's expression 
is more fitting, for it presents one 
phase of an undeniable and a funda- 
mental truth. Because the Creator 
effects His purpose in nature by the 
instrumentality of nature, it follows 
that nature appears to do her own 
selecting. 

That distinguished and conscientious 
scientist, Asa Gray, thus pointedly sug- 
gests the wanting factor in natural se- 
lection, " Given differences and an in- 
ternal tendency to differ more, i.e., 



DIVINE SELECTION 39 

given variation as an inexhaustible 
factor, and natural selection should suf- 
fice for the preservation and increase 
of the select few as a consequence of 
the destruction of the intermediate 
many. . . . For in each variation lies hid- 
den the mystery of a beginning."* Nat- 
ural law is but the ultimate and ex- 
ternal expression of spiritual law. By 
spiritual law is to be understood the 
law of the spiritual world, of the soul, 
and of the mind ; the law of true reli- 
gion ; the law that made and governs 
all things superior to matter. Natural 
law is a material picture of spiritual 
law. 

The Creator never acts abstractly or 
arbitrarily. He always secures His 
purposes in nature through her laws. 
It may be truly said that natural law 
is as the body of which spiritual law is 
the soul. The arm moves from a spirit- 
ual power in the will ; the countenance 

* " Natural Science and Religion," page 72. 



40 DIVINE SELECTION 

smiles from a spiritual power. Man 
loves, thinks, and performs every act: 
from a spiritual power in the soul. 
Likewise nature, being the body of 
which the spiritual world is the soul, 
performs all her operations in minutest 
particulars and most general aspect from 
the forces of the spiritual world, which 
world the Creator fills with life and 
power from Himself. 

Then Mr. Darwin was, in one sense, 
right in speaking of natural selection; 
for, as we have said, when the Creator 
would effect a purpose in nature, He 
does it through natural law. Indeed, 
natural law is the way the Creator acts 
on the natural plane. 

There is yet a more comprehensive 
view of this fact suggested in the con- 
ception that the Creator is fully in 
spiritual law, just as cause is within 
effect ; hence His purposes must be 
worked out there. And as natural law 
is the outward expression of spiritual 



DIVINE SELECTION 41 

law, or the spiritual law descended and 
operative in matter, He is also in natural 
law, which likewise and as fully serves 
His will. 

Now, since natural law is such ulti- 
mate expression of Divine law, natural 
selection is Divine selection. So, while 
Mr. Darwin was right in speaking of 
the creative process as natural selection, 
he was equally wrong in thinking that 
the power to select is innate in nature. 
For natural selection expresses only 
half the truth — the outward, lower half. 
For the completion of the truth we 
must supplement it with the inner and 
higher half — Divine selection. Natural 
selection being supplemented by Divine 
selection, the cloud over the tabernacle 
lifts and we can see to proceed on our 
journey. The mystery of creation is 
largely dispelled, for then it is realized 
how nature has selected so wisely, why 
she has never made a mistake, and 
why she never can err. We can then 



42 DIVINE SELECTION 

understand how nature could select to 
form the seas and the dry land, the 
simplest forms of primeval flora and 
fauna, and advance so orderly and 
surely to the creation of man, and lastly 
work at every point, besetting man be- 
fore and behind, to make him righteous 
and holy as the heir to the wisdom, love, 
and blessings of Divine life itself. 

It is this perception of things com- 
monly felt, though vaguely expressed, 
that will not permit thought to rest in 
the inadequate and misleading doctrine 
of natural selection and survival of the 
fittest, and that is seeking to give ex- 
pression to the grander fact of Divine 
Selection and Survival of the Useful, 
the perpetual proof and exemplification 
of which the universe is. 



CHAPTER V 

Projected 
Efficiency 

SINCE the foregoing chapters 
were written, a new work has 
appeared from the pen of an 
avowed Evolutionist.* Its bold 
and startling assertions may warrant 
its consideration here, for it repudiates 
the governing principle in Evolution 
that has heretofore prevailed, and pro- 
poses a new basis for the solution of 
the very effects whose causes we are 
seeking. Furthermore, it is the first 
of a projected series on evolutionary 
philosophy, whereby it is hoped to re- 
vive faith in the cause, and by a new 
treatment adapt the theory to twentieth 
century thought. 

The argument serves our purpose 

* "Western Civilization." Benjamin Kidd. 



44 DIVINE SELECTION 

most efficiently in two ways. First, it 
is in harmony with these chapters, and 
reinforces its purpose in refuting the 
governing principle in Evolution as 
heretofore expounded. And second, the 
new governing principle of the evolu- 
tionary process offered, not only shows 
the inadequacy of evolutionary philos- 
ophy in general, but it also proposes a 
solution that, from one point of view, 
is separated but a step from the con- 
clusions of the Theist. 

The philosophy of the English Soci- 
ologists, which is nothing other than 
the doctrine of Evolution applied to 
the social status, Mr. Kidd thus rele- 
gates to antiquity, " There has been 
no system of ideas that has ever held 
the mind of the world from which the 
intellectual basis has been so completely 
struck away. That theory of human 
religions which so many minds have 
followed and surpassed Mr. Spencer in 
developing merely as a theory of sur- 



PROJECTED EFFICIENCY 45 

vivals in the present; that theory of 
psychology, developed from Hume to 
Huxley, in which the content of the 
human mind is viewed simply as a con- 
dition in which the present is related 
to past experience either in the indi- 
vidual or in the race ; that widely 
prevalent conception of social progress 
developed from Voltaire to Marx as a 
movement towards a state in which 
the self-conscious present is to be finally 
organized towards the complete expres- 
sion of its own ascendant interests; 
have each passed definitely into the 
background, nevermore to receive the 
authoritative assent of the human intel- 
lect to its premises.'' * 

In a summary, Mr. Kidd's theory is 
that natural selection operates, not to 
favor the individual or even the pres- 
ent, but that its interests are always in 
the future. Throughout the long ages 
of struggle, " efficiency in the future is 

* " Western Civilization," page 12. 



46 DIVINE SELECTION 

the determining quality." * Mr. Kidd's 
theory of the governing principle in 
Evolution differs as widely from preva- 
lent theories as he would have us be- 
lieve. For Evolutionists have held 
hitherto that the controlling principle 
is in nature itself, seeking perpetually 
to preserve the present and to perpet- 
uate it. 

How fundamentally Mr. Kidd differs 
is evinced in these words, "The con- 
trolling center of the evolutionary proc- 
ess in our social history is not in the 
present at all, but in the future. It is 
in favor of the interests of the future 
that natural selection continually dis- 
criminates." f 

This principle he calls " projected 
efficiency." In analyzing this idea we 
are led to ask, What is " projected ef- 
ficiency ?" Mr. Kidd's clearest idea ap- 
pears in the following words, " It is a 
world in which, with the passing of 

* ibid, page 53. t ibid, page 6. 



PROJECTED EFFICIENCY 47 

the present under the control of the 
future, there is being accomplished for 
the first time in the development of 
the race the emancipation of the future 
in the present." * 

Mr. Kidd strenuously maintains that 
natural selection does not operate alone 
to the advantage of existing individu- 
als, but that efficiency in the future is 
ever the end in view. 

The essence of projected efficiency is 
that the present is governed with ref- 
erence to the future. It comprehends 
the greater use to which all things are 
subjected. But we still have to ask, 
What is the future? Is it an entity? 
Is it in existence? If not an entity in 
existence, how can it govern? We 
can get no nearer the solution of 
the controlling agency by shifting it as 
an undefined thing into the future. If 
it is the future that rules, " the future " 
must be defined before we have ad- 

* ibid, page 342. 



48 DIVINE SELECTION 

vanced one whit in wisdom or one whit 
nearer an explanation. 

There is only one sense in which 
"projected efficiency" has any sane 
meaning, and that is that the govern- 
ment of the future is the government 
of Him who inhabits the future, and to 
whom the future is as the present. With 
this definition of " projected efficiency " 
we can rationally agree, for then the 
governing principle in natural selection 
is, as we have shown, Divine selection or 
the good of the future, as determined 
by Him who sees the end from the be- 
ginning, and governs all things accord- 
ingly. 

Present progress is, in this sense, the 
perpetual emancipation of the future in 
the present, the perpetual emancipation 
of higher thought and life in the minds 
of men, unfolding out of the Spirit of 
God, in whom the future is in po- 
tency. 

But since it is impossible for the fu- 



PROJECTED EFFICIENCY 49 

ture to have any power in the present, 
or for the present to project anything 
into the future before the future be- 
comes the present, the term " projected 
efficiency " is misleading and inadequate. 
Since all advancement is from the un- 
folding of things that are in potency in 
the Spirit of God as it is received in 
nature and the hearts of men, it now 
only remains for some one again to as- 
sign the do£trine of "projected efficien- 
cy " to a " past and unenlightened age," 
and to formulate a modern doctrine of 
zVje<5ted efficiency commendable to twen- 
tieth century intelligence. 



CHAPTER VI 

Internal 
Realities 

DARWIN did not live to see 
the extent to which the basic 
principle of natural selection, 
which he formulated, would 
be carried. The development of the 
theory of Evolution, to which he first 
gave definite shape, has been quite 
commensurate with its acceptance. 

The geological record has been great- 
ly improved, evidence has been sifted, 
and a chain of reason forged that, of its 
kind, is quite complete until the ques- 
tions are taken up that appertain to man, 
society, and moral development. 

The inadequacy of the evolutionary 
explanation of cosmic processes in this 
regard, Mr. Huxley concedes. For, 
says he, " Social progress means a 
checking of the cosmic progress at 



INTERNAL REALITIES 51 

every step, and the substitution for it 
of another, which may be called the 
ethical process." 

It is remarkable that so keen a think- 
er as Mr. Huxley should not at once 
see that the existence in nature of two 
creative processes is as impossible as 
the existence of two Creators. 

Evolutionary reasonings in regard to 
the cosmic process are brought to an 
abrupt end when moral questions are 
taken up, because the theory of Evolu- 
tion is constructed without recognition 
of the moral, and can therefore in no 
wise account for it. It is far easier to 
amend the conception of the cosmic 
process than it is to conceive of two 
processes in creation diametrically op- 
posed. The tendency of modern think- 
ers, therefore, is in the direction of re- 
forming the conception of the cosmic 
process. 

As Darwin eliminated the inconsist- 
encies of Lamarck that the theory of 



52 DIVINE SELECTION 

Evolution might advance, others will 
modify the mistakes of the school of 
Messrs. Huxley, Spencer, and Tyndall. 
In this regard Mr. Fiske, in his "Through 
Nature to God," performs an admirable 
service. Says he, " When Huxley asks 
us to believe that the cosmic process 
has no sort of relation to moral ends, 
I feel like replying with the question, 
Does not the cosmic process exist pure- 
ly for the sake of moral ends?"* Cer- 
tainly moral ends have been secured. 
Creation has brought them forth. And 
taking into consideration the relation 
between cause and effect, it can be 
concluded positively that the cosmic 
process is nothing other than the 
means through which moral ends have 
been secured ; first in bringing forth a 
being sufficiently high to be capable of 
morality, and second in inspiring him 
with moral ideals and ambitions. The 
moral motive that is in the first cause 

* Page 113. 



INTERNAL REALITIES 53 

terminates in the effect or the final cre- 
ated form. It can be concluded cer- 
tainly that not only is there a moral 
motive in the cosmic process, but also 
that the moral motive in the First Cause, 
or the Creator, flows through all His 
agencies into the last effect, and binds 
all to Himself in unity. 

If Evolution, as an explanation of 
phenomena, merits longer serious con- 
sideration, it must at least be so revised 
that there shall be no break from the 
creation of the moneron to the finest 
specimen of religious man. When it is 
known that the evolutionary concep- 
tion of the cosmic process cannot be 
applied alike to matter and mind, it 
can no longer command the favor of 
thinking men, and must stand as a 
monument to the memory of great but 
misguided genius. 

Mr. Fiske aptly suggests a readjust- 
ment of Evolution that is a forecast of 
what is to come, and in doing so he 



54 DIVINE SELECTION 

lays down a principle before which all 
theories must give way, or accommo- 
date themselves to it. "To suppose 
that during countless ages, from the 
sea-weed up to man, the progress of 
life was achieved through adjustments 
to external realities, but that then the 
method was all at once changed, and 
throughout a vast province of evolu- 
tion the end was secured through ad- 
justments to external non-realities, is to 
do sheer violence to logic and com- 
mon sense So far as our knowl- 
edge of nature goes, the whole mo- 
mentum of it carries us onward to the 
conclusion that the unseen world, as 
the objective term is a relation of fun- 
damental importance that has coexisted 
with the whole career of mankind, has 
a real existence."* The conspicuous 
error of Evolution for which it must 
now pay the penalty is, that it has never 
acknowledged the very objective term, 

* "Through Nature to God," page 189. 



INTERNAL REALITIES 55 

real or unreal, toward which the cos- 
mic process is moving. But here Evo- 
lution has at least been consistent with 
itself, for how could a theory have an 
end in view that had its beginning in 
the "fortuitous concourse of atoms?" 
The reality of the unseen world offers 
a rational solution to the whole prob- 
lem. For how much easier it is to 
think of the ascent in creation being 
brought about by adjustment to inter- 
nal realities rather than by adjustment 
to external non-realities! If we stop 
to think what words mean, we shall 
know that external non-realities are 
nothing, and that adjustments to ex- 
ternal non-realities are adjustments to 
nothing. 

The cosmic process regards two 
things, external realities and internal 
realities. There is the external reality 
of the natural world, to which mate- 
rial creation must conform. The eye 
is adjusted to the ether, the ear to 



56 DIVINE SELECTION 

the sound, the lungs to the atmos- 
phere, the fin to the water, the wing 
to the air. We have no difficulty in 
acknowledging the reality of the nat- 
ural world, because it is cognized by 
the senses set in the body. It is a cor- 
poreal organism perceived by the corpo- 
real senses. To complete our under- 
standing, to advance at all, we must 
introduce the other fa<5tor of a real, 
spiritual world. Introducing this term 
need suggest nothing vague, evanes- 
cent, or strange. A common-sense view 
of it will make it both real and already 
quite familiar. The spiritual world is 
the world of man's spirit, or of the 
world proper to it. Its evidences are 
of daily experience, for as to our spirits 
we are ever inhabitants of that world, 
deriving from it our thoughts, affec- 
tions, states of mind, and life. Nor 
could the spirit be an occupant of any 
other. 

We can distinguish the faculties of 



INTERNAL REALITIES 57 

the spirit from those of the body. For 
no less certainly does the mind see in 
spiritual light than does the body in 
natural light. The spirit sees, feels, 
tastes, perceives, and hears spiritual 
forces, as surely as the senses of the 
body cognize natural things. The in- 
ner eye sees truth, an inner sense feels 
kindness, an inner sense tastes love, an 
inner sense perceives a Divine Provi- 
dence, an inner sense hears the voice 
of righteousness. These are all spiritual 
forces proper to the spiritual world, 
and are the effects of spiritual entities, 
though not natural, yet as real as those 
of heat, light, odor, or matter in any 
form. 

Should it be said that these spiritual 
forces do exist, but that they are predi- 
cated of the mind, let it be remembered 
that they do not originate in physical 
sensations, but are purely mental in their 
primary a6lion, which shows that the 
mind is not an organ of the body, but 



58 DIVINE SELECTION 

of the spirit wherein spiritual forces 
act; and that the body is simply the 
mind's instrument of consciousness and 
action in the natural world. 

Let such a factor, a real, spiritual 
world, be introduced into our reason- 
ings, and surely we have every cause 
for believing that the development of 
natural organisms has taken place 
through adjustment to external reali- 
ties, and in a similar manner the mind is 
developed by adjustment to internal re- 
alities, which are properly called spir- 
itual. 

The intellect is adjusted to knowledge 
as surely as the fin is to the sea. Un- 
derstanding bears the same relation to 
truth as the eye does to light. Love 
bears the same relation to the spirit as 
heat does to the body. The will hears 
as well as the body. The sense of 
right is adjusted to righteousness as 
feeling is to matter. 

Is it too unreal a thing to believe 






INTERNAL REALITIES 59 

that as the material organism is framed 
and developed in adjustment to the 
external, natural world, so the spirit is 
developed by adjustment to the internal, 
spiritual world ; and that the develop- 
ment of man is a perpetual adjustment 
to the Man in God, the Creator? 



CHAPTER VII 

The 
Last Link 

IT IS well known that the vibrisae 
or whiskers of the cat, which ter- 
minate in sacs about which nerve 
fibers cluster, serve as delicate or- 
gans of touch. 

Embryology tells us that cat-whis- 
kers are merely specialized forms of 
hair, like that on mammals, and which, 
in germinal form, are found upon man 
imbedded in the skin. 

It is claimed that the eye and ear 
are developed from the same vibrisas. 

We are told that in the process of 
evolution, while the differentiations of 
dermal tissue formed scales, feathers, 
and hair, some differentiations went to- 
ward the production of eyes and ears. 
Then the bulb of the eye and the audi- 
tory chamber of the ear were, to start 



THE LAST LINK 61 

with, hair sacs. They are now meta- 
morphosed hair sacs. The crystalline 
lens of the eye is also, we are told, a 
differentiated hair sac, and the aqueous 
and vitreous humor are liquefied, der- 
mal tissue. 

Says Mr. Fiske, in commenting upon 
this, "One can seem to discern how in 
the history of the eye there was at 
first a concentration of pigment grains 
in a particular dermal sac, making the 
spot exceptionally sensitive to light ; 
then came by slow degrees the height- 
ened translucence, the convexity of sur- 
face, the refracting humor and the mul- 
tiplication of nerve vesicles arranging 
themselves as rectinal rods." * In other 
words, the eye was formed by the im- 
pact of light rays upon pigment grains 
in a dermal sac. The ear is represented 
to have been formed in a like manner 
by adjustment of other dermal sacs to 
the sound wave. 

* " Through Nature to God," page 183. 



62 DIVINE SELECTION 

The reality and substantiality of the 
spiritual world, together with the fact 
of a Divinely Human God, supplies us 
with the last link in the chain of as- 
cending creation. 

If light falling upon pigment grains 
in the hair sac can form the eye, the 
activity of intelligence within the soul 
can form the organ of human intelli- 
gence. If sound waves form the ear, 
the activity of spiritual light can form 
from cells of the soul the organ of 
mental sight. Divine Love acting upon 
initial forms in the soul can form the 
organs of human love. Likewise the 
Divine Understanding can form the 
human understanding, and the Divine 
Will can form the human will. In 
short, the activities of the Divine Hu- 
man operating upon elementary cells of 
the soul can form all the faculties of 
the finite human. In a similar way to 
the formation of the eye and ear by 
adjustment to the external world, the 



THE LAST LINK 63 

human of the spirit can be formed 
by adjustment to the Divine Human 
through the spiritual world. And is it 
going too far to say that it is the un- 
defined consciousness of this that has 
fixed so fundamentally in the Christian 
faith the belief in the Divine Humanity, 
the Personality of God, that has in all 
time been so resolutely defended? 

If we regard the spiritual world not 
material, but real and substantial as 
the natural world, having corresponding 
substances and forces, yet purer and 
higher, if we will use the same, sound 
sense in thinking of that which is invisi- 
ble to the corporeal senses as we do of 
the visible, the formation of the spirit 
with its special organs and faculties is 
as rationally, easily, and clearly con- 
ceived as is the development of the 
material organs of sense by the impact 
of natural forces. 

The line and purpose of developing 
forms were to take on an ever more 



64 DIVINE SELECTION 

perfect correspondence with nature. 
The eye developed to light, touch to 
obje6ts, the ear to sound, the taste to 
flavor, the nostrils to odor. The acme 
of forms possible through adjustment 
merely to external realities is reached 
in the brute, which has all these facul- 
ties. Yet there is truth, purity, char- 
ity, righteousness, holiness, godliness ; 
but adjustment to sound waves, flavors, 
odors, light, and material objects does 
not produce these, for the brute is as 
unaware of them as if they did not 
exist, although his natural senses are 
incomparably keener than man's. When 
development had reached its height 
through adjustment to external reali- 
ties, then commenced the development 
by adjustment to internal realities — to 
the Divine Human. Through this ad- 
justment came the human, as a super- 
structure to the animal. 

If the eye developed by adjustment to 
light, the ear to sound, and the animal 



THE LAST LINK 65 

to nature in general, is it unreasonable 
to ask what did the human develop in 
adjustment to? Certainly something! 
What this something is we surely know. 
The faculty of perceiving truth devel- 
ops by adjustment to Truth , the sense 
of purity to Purity, charity to Charity, 
righteousness to Righteousness, godli- 
ness to Godliness, humanity to Hu- 
manity. 

We have but to consider the spirit- 
ual world as real as nature, and capa- 
ble of spiritual powers as nature is of 
natural powers, and to think of the 
Divine Human of God filling the spir- 
itual world full of human power as the 
sun fills nature with sun-powers, to 
have a rational, tangible basis for pro- 
gressive study. 

Should this seem to be a statement 
too large for human grasp, let it be 
said that we do not have to enter 
strange territory to confirm this. We 
are not required to believe anything 



66 DIVINE SELECTION 

that is not in harmony with physical 
fa<5ts. We need not accept anything 
that is not similar to that with which we 
are already familiar. In fact the very 
opposite is imperative. We are request- 
ed to think in harmony with physical 
facts ; to reason just as we do about 
things with which we are familiar, and 
to disbelieve everything that is not in 
harmony with a broad and true concep- 
tion of nature and her laws. 

We know how the sun imparts activ- 
ity to nature and fills it with sun poten- 
cies. We are continually impressed with 
the complex and numerous forms of 
the activity of ether as displayed by 
the prism and photography. If there 
are so many varieties of electric activ- 
ity that there are developed not only 
such different things as heat, light, and 
power, but also many particular activi- 
ties, exemplified by the X-ray, wireless 
telegraphy, and radio activity in gen- 
eral, how much more probable it is 



THE LAST LINK 67 

that there are still more numerous and 
complex activities, still more potencies 
in the Human Spirit that flows into the 
universe from God ! How conceivable 
it is that His Spirit, bathing the soul 
of man and the spiritual world like 
sunshine, should produce in man by its 
inherent forms of activity all the essen- 
tials that distinguish man from brute ! 
The introduction of the factor of the 
spiritual world, in adjustment to which 
the spiritual faculties of man are formed 
and developed, certainly solves the prob- 
lem in a conceivable way. Nor does 
it stand on this basis alone, for it solves 
the problem in a rational way, and also 
it is confirmed by the analogy of all 
that we know. 

Even Materialists acknowledge a 
realm of invisible, material substance, 
called ether, as absolutely essential to 
the explanation of the simplest phe- 
nomenon of nature. One of two things 
must occur : either men must refuse to 



68 DIVINE SELECTION 

think, or the same logic will force into 
our reasonings the introduction of an 
unseen, spiritual world. Therefore men 
of the higher rational order cannot 
deny what they see, and so urge as the 
only means of progress in intelligence 
the acknowledgment of the reality of 
the unseen world. 

There is no reason that can be urged 
against the fact that the impact of the 
activity of the Spirit of God, in which 
there are infinite potencies, gives the 
sense of spiritual beauty, the inspiration 
of divine grandeur, the perception of 
moral law, the sense of purity, love, 
righteousness, holiness, divinity ; and 
produces in the soul the aspiration 
to know God and to come more fully 
into His image and likeness. Certainly 
the same logic is used to explain how 
the body comes into correspondence 
with nature, and it equally shows how 
the soul comes into correspondence 
with the powers of the unseen world. 



THE LAST LINK 69 

Viewing creation from the first to 
the present day, we see it to be a fact 
that forms took on successively nearer 
perfect correspondence with nature, and 
that when the animal in which there was 
at that time the nearest complete corre- 
spondence with nature became per- 
fected, then came man, who has con- 
tinued in the upward development, and 
little by little has come gradually into 
nearer perfect correspondence with the 
spiritual world and the Creator. This 
being the fact proves by all the logic 
there is in the course of events that it 
was the design in the beginning, and 
the final purpose throughout develop- 
ment. 

If we admit the cause that the effect 
demonstrates, our vision will clear at 
once, " For the invisible things of Him 
from the creation of the world are 
clearly seen, being understood by the 
things that are made, even His eternal 



7 o DIVINE SELECTION 

powers and Godhead ; so that they are 
without excuse." 

Therefore it rests upon those who see, 
to put together the fa&s of nature that 
the hewers of wood and drawers of 
water in Israel have gathered, and leave 
them still hewing and drawing, if it 
must be, while the men of God advance 
in the understanding of things that, 
though invisible to the senses, are yet 
real, and to the mind and soul are tan- 
gible and knowable. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Reality 

of THE 

Unseen World 

IT HAS been thought that through 
scientific research would come an 
explanation of the motor power of 
the universe and of the cosmic 
process in particular, so that there 
would be no need of resort to the 
thought of a spiritual world or of a 
Divine Being. But research has re- 
sulted in the reverse. The further we 
go, the more evident does it appear 
that nature is not sufficient unto her- 
self. The more we learn, the more 
certain we are that nature is only an 
effect of which an interior world is the 
cause. 

If science shows that one hair sac is 
developed into an eye and another into 
an ear, it does not tell why; and the 



72 DIVINE SELECTION 

facl: of the development is even as great 
a mystery as ever. For there is as 
much mystery in conceiving how and 
why nature develops an eye from one 
tissue and an ear from another as there 
is in imagining similar development 
from pure protoplasm. There is no 
intelligence in sound waves or ether 
vibrations. They can neither hear nor 
see. They are deaf and sightless things, 
and can therefore give neither the con- 
sciousness of sound nor sight, much 
less can they form the organs of these 
senses. Though no other reply had 
been given to the reasonings that ma- 
terialize spiritual phenomena, a suffic- 
ient answer is involved in those ancient 
yet trenchant words, " He that, planted 
the ear, shall He not hear? He that 
formed the eye, shall He not see?" 

If materialistic Evolution fails to ex- 
plain the causes in matter that form 
the physical organs, how much more 
must it fall short in accounting for the 



REALITY OF UNSEEN WORLD- 73 

life that animates them, which we desig- 
nate as human, and which is manifested 
in intelligence, the aspiration for eternal 
life, the worship of God, and the desire 
to know and to fulfil His laws. 

Spiritual things are as surely the 
objects of spiritual desires as material 
things are the objects of the senses. 
The wing of a bird is proof of an at- 
mosphere ; the fin of the fish is evi- 
dence of the sea. The ear is a proof 
of sound, the eye of light, the olfactory 
nerves of odors, the hand of objects 
external to it. We do not find in na- 
ture such a contradiction as a wing 
and no atmosphere, lungs and no air. 
It does not exist in the imagination of 
man to conceive, or in the power of 
God to create that which has no rela- 
tion to anything. Everything is in cor- 
respondence with something. Likewise 
every desire of the human heart must 
have not only a real object, but a pos- 
sible one. It is impossible for it to be 



74 DIVINE SELECTION 

otherwise, for in correspondence with 
something is every living thing made. 
There is no orderly appetite for which 
there is not a satisfying food. Of the 
mind's appetites it is equally true that 
the desire is sufficient evidence of the 
reality of its object and of the possi- 
bility of its satisfaction. 

Evolution emphasizes the theory of 
a development from the unicellular form 
to the complex structure of man. The 
creating energy has been so persistent 
that it has persevered to bring forth 
the perfect form, even by infinitesimal 
increments. It has developed a type of 
being whose understanding gives him 
an immovable faith in the existence of 
God, whose inmost and all-controlling 
life is to know God, whose chief purpose 
of existence is to become like Him, and 
who, in the exercise of this life, finds 
the highest, sweetest, most blessed and 
precious joy that is known. There are 
many who will say that it does not stand 



REALITY OF UNSEEN WORLD 75 

to reason that such a being could be 
created and brought to this state of life, 
and yet there be no reality in it. Moral 
intuition dictates that the human form 
could not be so perfected and endowed 
with sublime aspirations simply for dis- 
appointment. Since science holds that 
every animal organ, sense, and faculty, 
are developed through their relations to 
something, is it possible for the dis- 
tinctively human senses and faculties to 
be developed if they are in relation to 
nothing ? Is it not a violation of every 
principle of scientific reasoning to as- 
sume that human aspirations are devel- 
oped in relation to non-realities, or to 
nothing ? We may conclude with logic 
as sound and certain as is used in any 
scientific deduction, that every sense, 
faculty, and hope of the human soul 
has an objective reality in relation to 
which it is developed as surely as the 
wing argues an atmosphere, or the eye 
an ether. 



76 DIVINE SELECTION 

That there is a substantial, spiritual 
world in relation to which the faculties 
of the human soul are developed, is 
not too great a thing to conceive nor 
too remote to be urged as an esssen- 
tial basis of philosophical reasoning. 
Considering the wisdom and power 
of the Creating Agency displayed in 
the universe, can we conceive of its 
final failure through attempting that 
which is too much for it? Man may 
lay a foundation upon which he is un- 
able to build, but we cannot conceive 
of the Supreme Architect making false 
calculations, and Himself ridiculous in 
the understanding of His own creatures, 
through inability to complete the struct- 
ure upon the foundation which He has 
laid. 

It was once a grievous question what 
we should do for oil when the sperm 
whale becomes extinguished. Coal oil 
was found. Yet mankind took up the 
same childish dirge, What shall we do 



REALITY OF UNSEEN WORLD 77 

when coal oil gives out ? Electricity has 
now revealed an inexhaustible supply 
of light. In whatever field man has 
wrought, nature has been found replete 
in her provision, and all experience 
goes to show that she amply supplies, 
in the best way and forever, the devel- 
oping needs of mankind, giving him 
more and better than he had hoped for. 
If nature is so perfect in her ministry 
to the external and lower desires of 
mankind, how much more must the 
spiritual world be able to satisfy the 
internal and higher desires ! 

The sense that tells us that nature 
could not have been started by fortune, 
nor continued by chance, nor perfected 
by selfish strife, reveals not only that 
there is an intelligent, designing, loving 
God, but also a world within the ma- 
terial, which gives shape and life to 
the natural world, and is able to serve 
with full satisfaction the aspirations that 
are planted in the spirit of man. 



78 DIVINE SELECTION 

In asserting the existence of a real, 
spiritual world, we do not carry mate- 
rialism into the spiritual realm. Ma- 
terial applies to the passive, dead, sub- 
stances of the natural universe, includ- 
ing the substances that enter into the 
composition of the sun down to the 
most fixed rock of the earth. The sub- 
stances of the spiritual world are supe- 
rior and interior to all of these. 

We recognize that water has a prop- 
erty of plasticity superior to that of rock. 
Air is still more plastic than water, 
which constitutes it the medium of sound. 
Ether is still more plastic than air, 
which enables it to be the medium of 
light. No scientist can doubt or fail to 
conceive of the material substance of 
ether, so subtle as to penetrate mat- 
ter of a lower degree and be univers- 
ally present. We can as easily con- 
ceive of a spiritual world likewise sepa- 
rated from the material. We are obliged 
to introduce into our higher reasoning 



REALITY OF UNSEEN WORLD 79 

a substantial, spiritual world, a form as 
real to the faculties of the soul as na- 
ture is to the senses of the body. The 
whole difficulty with the science of the 
day is that it refuses to acknowledge 
in its reasonings what is not discerni- 
ble by the bodily senses, yet which 
reason clearly discerns. And as spirit 
must ever elude the senses of the body 
from its superiority to them, it must 
be introduced as a rational conclusion 
of scientific thought. In which case 
spiritual or mental phenomena are as 
readily explained as natural phenom- 
ena, and by analogous principles. 

Materialism has never explained a pri- 
mary cause. It is safe to say that the 
realm of interior causes can not be en- 
tered until science admits the rational 
deductions that every cause originates 
in a substance, that every force is the 
activity of a substance, and that all su- 
pernatural powers are from a substan- 
tial, spiritual world. Indeed, it may as 



80 DIVINE SELECTION 

well be admitted now as at any time 
that there can be no interior knowl- 
edge of anything if an explanation is 
desired that shall do away with the 
acknowledgment of God, who is the 
Creator and the life-power itself. Sup- 
pose it to be true that there is a God, 
in whom is life itself, who is a Creator 
because He can put forth from Him- 
self substance, and form spiritual and 
material objects. Suppose that things 
external to the Creator, both natural 
and spiritual, were so formed that they 
could receive their respective kinds of 
life perpetually from Him. What then 
would be the mental status of him 
who, denying this, should try to account 
for creation apart from the Creator? 
Would not the present materialistic 
and agnostic conditions necessarily en- 
sue? In this the origin of Evolution, 
together with all its modifications and 
adaptations, is clearly apparent. 

The materialism revived by Mr. Dar- 



REALITY OF UNSEEN WORLD 81 

win, and pressed so zealously by his 
followers, is in substance the rejection 
of God, the same as that of which 
Jeremiah long ago wrote: "Saying to 
a stock, ' Thou art my father,' and to a 
stone, * Thou hast brought me forth.' ' ! 
And the reason of it is the same as in 
the lines following : " For they have 
turned their backs unto Me, and not 
their faces." 



CHAPTER IX 

A Law 

of 

Creation 

IT IS argued that the impact of 
light rays and sound waves formed 
respectively the eye and the ear. 
Then, according to the same prin- 
ciple, odors formed the sense of smell, 
flavor the sense of taste, and material 
objects the sense of feeling. But since 
taste and feeling are not acted upon 
except they act, for appetite or desire 
must precede the act, the conclusion 
cannot be drawn, and the principle fails ; 
and failing as to one sense it fails as to 
all. No more potent are light rays to 
form the eye, or air waves to form the 
ear without the introduction of another 
factor. The object of a sense cannot 
form the sense. Nowhere in all the 
realms of life did an object form its 
subject. If it were possible for the 



A LAW OF CREATION 83 

object to form the subje6t, it would be 
an inevitable fact that creation made 
the Creator. Whatever service nature 
renders in forming the senses, which 
truly is great, there is yet something 
back of nature. 

Before we can locate that something, 
it must be understood that the organ 
of sight is not the sense of sight. The 
organ of any sense is not the sense. 
The seat of sensation is admitted to be 
in the brain, which reaches to the eye 
by the optic nerve, to the ear by the 
auditory nerve, and throughout the 
body to all senses and parts by exten- 
sion of telegraphic nerve-lines. If the 
external organ, as the eye or ear, is 
impaired, or the connecting nerve in- 
tercepted, the sense cannot operate, yet 
the faculty remains the same ; for when 
the obstruction is removed, the sense 
again operates. The blind have in po- 
tency the mental faculty of sight, but 
not the organ of sight. The deaf have 



84 DIVINE SELECTION 

the faculty of hearing, but not the organ 
of hearing. Sensation is a faculty of the 
brain exercised through the sense organ, 
for the eye does not see nor the ear hear 
unless attention is given. 

Go a step further. The brain itself is 
not the primary organ of sense. The 
soul within is the real person of sense 
and faculty. The brain is as much an 
organ of the soul's faculties as the eye 
is an organ of the brain's faculties. 

Physiologically the eye is an organism 
put forth by the brain that it may sensate 
rays of light. Likewise the brain and 
the whole material body are an organism 
put forth by the soul that it may live 
in and sensate nature. And this occurs 
that the soul may have a beginning on 
the lowest and outward plane, and com- 
mence its development. So it is neither 
the eye that sees, nor the brain, but it 
is the person, in whom is the faculty of 
sight, that sees in nature through the 
instrumentality of brain and eye. 



A LAW OF CREATION 85 

Of course there can be no faculty with- 
out an organ of faculty. But the po- 
tency of all the faculties is primarily 
in the human essence. The soul, nec- 
essarily a complete human form, hav- 
ing organs for all its faculties, is the 
real, sentient being. This basic prin- 
ciple is not new. Paul says : "There 
is a natural body, and there is" (not 
will be) " a spiritual body." This is but 
another way of saying that man is the 
soul and has a body. If any sense is 
wanting, as in the blind or deaf, it 
is not that the faculty is not in the 
person of the soul, but it is because 
the physical instrument is out of ad- 
justment to the inner faculty, to which 
the sense organ bears the same relation 
as an impaired lens to the eye, or a 
broken ear-trumpet to the ear. Correct 
the material eye and the soul will see; 
repair the ear and the soul will hear. 

Now if we have succeeded in draw- 
ing the distinction between a merely 



86 DIVINE SELECTION 

material organism and the mind, or soul, 
in which is all faculty, and which uses 
the external organ as its instrument of 
action, we can proceed still further. 

We are told that the hair sac is de- 
veloped into an eye by the impact of 
light rays, or into an ear by the im- 
pact of sound waves. We have noted 
the unsatisfactoriness of this as an ex- 
planation of either, because we know 
that in light or in sound waves there 
is no adequate power of design. The 
senses of seeing and of hearing not be- 
ing in ether or air, ether and air have 
no power to form these organs, much 
less are they able to impart the facul- 
ties of seeing and of hearing. 

The essential faculty of seeing proper 
to the soul not only sees through, but 
forms the organ of sight in the body. 
That light did not form the eye ought 
to be evident from the fact that the 
eye is now formed before the animal 
comes to the light. If it needed the 



A LAW OF CREATION 87 

impact of light to form the first eye, 
there would be the same requirement 
now. The first eye must have been 
formed according- to the same laws and 
by the same forces that all subsequent 
ones are. The same of the ear and of 
every sense organ. The essential sense- 
faculty of the soul forms its organ of 
use in the body. Yet the activities of 
nature's elements are essential, not to 
form the sense directly, but to co-oper- 
ate with the sense-faculty of the soul 
in the perfection of the material organ- 
ism by use. 

The eyes of the fish in Mammoth 
Cave are mere specks, and their nerves 
senseless threads, because there is no 
co-operation of light waves with the 
sense-faculty. The rudimentary eye is 
formed by the sense-faculty, and it is 
developed into complete form between 
the sense-faculty and the medium of 
light by use. The organ of any sense- 
faculty is formed by the sense-faculty 



88 DIVINE SELECTION 

itself, and is developed to its fullness 
by the sense-faculty using it in nature. 

The eye of the Cave-fish is sightless, 
not because of the absence of the es- 
sential sense-faculty, but it is due to the 
absence of the plane of reaction that use 
in nature provides, and has, following 
the law of non-use, suffered atrophy. 

That both the eye and the ear are 
developed alike from the sensitive hair 
sac, does not indicate that the senses 
are derived from one, that of feeling. 
It only reveals that the eye and the ear 
are developed from the same material 
substance and planes. It only argues that 
the faculty of seeing uses the same mat- 
ter to form the organs of the eye as the 
faculty of hearing uses to form the organ 
of hearing. Because the whole human 
body is made of protoplasm does not 
argue in any degree that all its faculties 
are derived from one. Because a house 
and a church are built of brick does 
not indicate that both were built by the 



A LAW OF CREATION 89 

same architect. If the finger is cut, 
and the inner and outer skin, the mus- 
cles, membranes, and nerves are repro- 
duced from the same material, it does 
not argue that all these are one, and 
are developed immediately from the 
same unit. It only shows that the soul 
uses the same material to build different 
parts of its earthly dwelling. It shows 
that there is a substantial framework 
within that remains intact when the 
body is wounded, and proceeds to re- 
clothe itself when it is laid bare. If it 
were the purpose here to enter into a 
psychological discussion, it might be 
shown that seeing and feeling are es- 
sentially very different faculties, seeing 
being a faculty derived from the soul's 
mental function or the understanding, 
and feeling being derived from the other 
division of the mind, or the will. 



CHAPTER X 

God 
Knowable 

IT IS universally acknowledged that 
God is infinite. That man is finite 
is equally clear. That the finite can- 
not comprehend the infinite is also 
beyond dispute. But no graver error 
can be made than to draw the conclu- 
sion that since man is finite and God 
is infinite, God is unknowable. 

The essential nature of a rock is just 
as unknowable as God is, yet we have 
the science of geology. But because 
the essential nature of a rock is un- 
known no one of sound mind questions 
the existence of a rock. The essential 
nature of land and water is unknow- 
able, but no one doubts the existence 
of land and sea, or questions the laws 
of navigation. The essential nature of 
the earth is unknown, but there is ab- 



GOD KNOWABLE 91 

solute faith in the science of geogra- 
phy. The essential nature of an animal 
is unknowable, yet no one doubts its 
existence nor does the fact interfere 
with the science of zoology. So of 
botany, chemistry, medicine, and all the 
sciences. Science and art are as infinite 
as God is, yet they are not absolutely 
unknowable. There is a belief in rock, 
the earth, the seas, the animal, science 
and art, because they are objects of the 
material senses. But there are faculties 
higher and more trustworthy than the 
corporeal senses. Intelligence is a men- 
tal faculty of seeing, and gives knowl- 
edge of surer kind than can vision, or 
any corporeal sense, for intelligence 
not only directs the senses, uses them, 
and corrects sensual impressions, but it 
sees in its proper light upon its own 
plane. Intelligence reveals the existence 
of God, a spiritual world, a soul, and 
a life after death, as surely as the eye 
discloses a sun, an earth, a material 



92 DIVINE SELECTION 

body, and a natural life. The assertion 
that there are " ears that hear not " and 
"eyes that see not" is not a mere hy- 
perbole, but a real fa6l based upon the 
existence of a whole set of interior fac- 
ulties, though they be yet undiscovered 
and undeveloped. 

If the eye and ear set in the body 
are not used as a means of opening 
the inner vision and of unstopping the 
inner sense of understanding, human 
life cannot rise higher than animal life. 
The eye and ear set in the material 
body are primarily intended as the 
means of developing the inner, human 
faculties that beasts have not. When 
the inner eye of mental vision is opened 
and the inner ear of understanding is 
unstopped, the material senses become 
not rulers, but servants. But if the 
eye and ear of the body are not made 
to perform the office of opening the 
eye and ear of the soul, the human 
mind becomes blighted and closed to 



GOD KNOWABLE 93 

interior forces, and the man becomes a 
Sensist possessed of no higher life than 
that which flows in through the body. 
Truly he can then reason, but his rea- 
sons are as false as he is sensuous, and 
his conclusions are as lightless as his 
mind is sightless. Man is then simply 
an animal that thinks, or one whose 
mind is full of hallucination. Instead 
of regenerating into the image and like- 
ness of God, man may degenerate below 
the animal, becoming first sceptical, 
then agnostic, and at last an Atheist. 
He is then lower than an animal be- 
cause the animal never sinks below its 
instinct, always keeping in the order 
for which it is created ; while man may, 
because of his free-will, fall out of his 
order and fail to realize the purpose 
of his creation, which is to know and 
to love God. He is then lower than 
an animal because he is out of the or- 
der in which he is created and has 
neither instinct nor intelligence to guide 



94 DIVINE SELECTION 

his life according to any order, while 
the animal, has an instinct that keeps 
it in its ordained plane and purpose. 

Not only can we know God, but so 
fundamental is that knowledge that 
only so far as we know Him can any 
true philosophy be known. True knowl- 
edge starts with a knowledge of God, 
and only so far as He is known have 
we any definite understanding of any- 
thing. 

A knowledge of God reveals His 
relation to His creation and the rela- 
tion of one thing to another. With- 
out a knowledge of God one would not 
know whether he were a man or a 
thought of a man. He would not know 
whether the earth were actually exter- 
nal to himself or merely projected from 
his imagination. He would not know 
whether disease were disease or a 
thought of disease. He could not tell 
appearances from facts or facts from 
appearances. All healthy knowledge 



GOD KNOWABLE 95 

rests upon such an understanding of 
God that His relation to creation is 
comprehended. This makes nature her- 
self a revelation of God. Law, or- 
der, intelligence, power, beauty, grand- 
eur, and use, that are seen in nature, 
then speak of His beneficence ; they tell 
of His character, for then " The heavens 
declare the glory of God, and the fir- 
mament showeth His handiwork." 

Man created in the image and like- 
ness of God is the special field of the 
revelation of Him. Animal forms in- 
creased in completeness until man, who 
is a form adopted to receive from God 
the divine nature and character that 
we call human, was produced. The 
word human is not used in the sense 
that "it is human to err," but as mean- 
ing that in man which distinguishes 
him from the beasts, and makes possi- 
ble in him the image and likeness of 
God. The understanding is fashioned 
to receive wisdom from God, and the 



96 DIVINE SELECTION 

will is formed to receive love from 
Him. From wisdom and love unfold 
all the elements of the human, (the hu- 
man form being- the mechanism through 
which it is done,) just as heat, light, and 
power are derived from a single current 
of electricity. 

Man is created for no other purpose 
than to know God. To regard God 
unknowable is to defeat the fundamen- 
tal purpose of creation. God is a self- 
revealing Being, and the human mind 
is the particular plane of that revela- 
tion. Indeed, the sole purpose of hu- 
man creation is that God may reveal 
Himself therein by the gift of divine 
wisdom to the understanding and di- 
vine love to the will, from which the 
kingdom of heaven comes within. 

For centuries animal and vegetable 
forms were created. Matter was gath- 
ered together and material bodies were 
made. This was for a purpose. God 
is more than a mere potter of clay. 



GOD KNOWABLE 97 

He was working, as results show, to 
bring forth a being having so high a 
form of mind that His creative power 
might ascend higher than matter. The 
creation of varying material forms is 
now substantially ended, but creation 
continues on the plane of the human 
mind and is in essence the development 
of the divine character in man. The 
Garden of God is now composed of 
human hearts. Once creative forces 
were directed to the making of lands, 
seas, mollusks, fishes, birds, plants, an- 
imals. Now it is centered, as prepara- 
tion has been made, upon the devel- 
opment of justice, reason, judgment, 
purity, honesty, understanding, right- 
eousness, holiness, spirituality, love — in 
short, all that we know under the name 
of the Divine Human. 

Man being formed in the image of 
God that God might give Himself to 
man and unfold His nature to him, 
makes all true advancement to be pro- 



98 DIVINE SELECTION 

gress in the knowledge of God. Yet 
we should not regard such knowledge 
the mere intellectual grasp of His love 
and nature, but also the interior know- 
ing of Him through sensating His Di- 
vine Human nature in our lives among 
mankind. 

The godly loves for father, mother, 
sister, brother, son, daughter, wife, 
neighbor, country, church, made hal- 
lowed by the consciousness of their sa- 
cred relations and uses, are God's love 
sensated in the human heart. As we 
experience these, attributing them to 
their divine source, God is known, for 
such are of God's nature. 

Not to know God is not to know 
anything worth knowing, for the knowl- 
edge of God gives all other knowledge 
its value. Knowledge is permanently 
useful in the degree that it leads to 
and reveals God. For how much better 
is a white man with a gun than an 
Indian with a bow if his weapons are 



GOD KNOWABLE 99 

put only to the same selfish purpose? 
The superior knowledge of science and 
art is superior only so far as it opens 
the understanding to God and to the 
virtues that are of His Divine Hu- 
manity. To know God is life eternal, 
not only in the sense of life to come, 
but also of life here, and of the true 
life itself. 



,fC. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Absoluteness 

of 

Right and Wrong 

EVOLUTION, which offers nat- 
ural selection as the explanation 
of the origin of living forms, 
consistently with itself accounts 
for moral things in a similar way. For 
says Mr. Spencer : " Advancing a step 
further (than the evolution of structure) 
we have to frame a conception of the 
evolution of condu6l as correlated with 
this evolution of structure and func- 
tion." * 

We are told that right and wrong 
have their origin in human relations, 
and are developed as new conditions of 
society make additional demands. If 
there were only one person on the 
earth, whatever he desired to do would 

* " Principles of Ethics," vol. i., page 8. 



RIGHT AND WRONG 101 

be right. But as soon as another comes 
into the field, his equal rights must be 
respected. As the number increases, 
land is occupied, food is scarce, and 
social relations are developed, right 
and wrong have an increased meaning. 
Right and wrong, good and evil, are 
therefore considered as merely relative 
terms, having no absolute existence. 

Mr. Spencer illustrates the origin of 
" good " and " bad " by these words as 
applied to " a good house," " a bad um- 
brella," or "a bad pair of boots," affirming 
that there is no intrinsic character in 
good or bad.* He concludes that justice 
is developed from revenge through bal- 
ancing aggression and counter aggres- 
sion or compensating life for life in early 
times. 

The same author reasons that as in 
despotic countries lying is prevalent, 
and in free countries truthfulness is 
more general, lying and truthfulness 

f " Principles of Ethics," i., ch. ii. t ib., ch. vi. 



102 DIVINE SELECTION 

are due to " the coercive social struct- 
ure which chronic external enmity de- 
velops, and to the non-coercive social 
structure developed by a life of inter- 
nal amity."* 

Even chastity has no intrinsic virtue, 
is given a materialistic origin, and shares 
the same fate as other virtues. " Among 
men as among inferior creatures the 
needs of the species determine the 
rightness or wrongness of those or 
these sexual relations." f 

If virtues have their origin in con- 
ditions of society, and are primarily 
based upon the customs of social com- 
pacts, it is true that adultery, polyga- 
my, polyandry, and all forms of lasciv- 
iousness can be ethically supported 
equally with the virtues, as Mr. Spen- 
cer claims. These lamentable conclu- 
sions of materialistic reasonings are the 
inevitable results of the non-acknowledg- 
ment of God, in whom truth and good 

* ibid, vol. i., page 409. t ibid, vol. ii., page 448. 



RIGHT AND WRONG 103 

exist, not merely relatively, but intrin- 
sically. 

The evil in evolutionary reasons 
would never have appeared so clearly 
if evolutionists had stopped before they 
attempted to apply their principles to 
moral questions, and offer them in ex- 
planation of the spiritual development 
of man. Evolution is apparently inno- 
cent in its beginning. Eventually it 
throws off the sheep's clothing, and 
appears in its execrable profanity. It 
seems that the only charitable way of 
excusing the acceptance of Evolution 
by the religious, is to attribute their 
credulence to a superficial knowledge 
of its principles and to a total igno- 
rance of its vicious conclusions. 

Truth and goodness are the essential 
nature of God, from whom they orig- 
inate, together with every idea concern- 
ing them. Indeed, if the virtues had 
not an absolute existence in the Divine 
Being, they never could have been so 



i<>4 DIVINE SELECTION 

much as thought of. The intuition by 
which we know that we could have no 
sense of cold if there were not heat, 
no sense of light if there were not dark- 
ness, no sense of joy if there were not 
sadness, no sense of harmony if there 
were not discord, equally assures us that 
we could have no knowledge of even 
relative virtue if there were not abso- 
lute virtue. 

Right and wrong, therefore, do not 
have their origin in the social relation, 
though they appear there by contrast, 
but in God and in the relation of man 
to Him. 

In ascertaining what right and wrong 
are, it is necessary to carefully distin- 
guish the meaning of some words, for 
these terms in their essence are not so 
loose as is their use. From the shifting, 
varying use of these words one may 
become confused, and think that good- 
ness and truth are no more fixed than 
are the words that give them names. 



RIGHT AND WRONG 105 

That a thing or action is right or 
wrong, necessitates a standard of com- 
parison, The Creator Himself is that 
standard. Not only are His qualities 
good and true, but He is primarily 
Goodness and Truth itself. The thought 
is very inadequate that God is good 
only as an " umbrella " or a " pair of 
boots " is so regarded. Goodness and 
Truth are the names of His substance, 
just as land and water are the names 
of the two great elements of the earth's 
substance; just as flesh and blood are 
the names of the two general substances 
of the body ; just as soul and body are 
the names of the two essentials of a 
person. His "flesh is meat indeed," and 
His "blood is drink indeed," because 
all goodness and truth that nourish the 
soul are from Him alone in whom they 
are absolute. Essential goodness is His 
flesh. Essential truth is His blood. It 
is this spiritual character of God that 
the Lord endeavored to convey when 



106 DIVINE SELECTION 

He said, " Except ye eat My flesh and 
drink My blood, ye have no life in 
you." 

Goodness and truth being infinite in 
Him, these names of His attributes 
are the only names that have a mean- 
ing suitable to the substance itself of 
the Creator. " His flesh is meat indeed," 
and " His blood is drink indeed," be- 
cause all goodness and truth that nour- 
ish the mind and soul are from Him 
alone in whom they are absolute. 

It ought to be seen intuitively that 
the qualities of good and truth could 
not exist if there were not absolute 
good and truth from which such quali- 
ties are derived. For we know that no 
natural quality can exist without mat- 
ter, of which it is a quality. It is 
equally evident that no spiritual qual- 
ity can exist without a substance in 
which it inheres. 

Having the starting point that the 
Creator is goodness and truth itself, 



RIGHT AND WRONG 107 

less degrees of good and truth are not 
perplexing. God being essential good- 
ness, truth is the way His goodness 
acts. Good as a quality is that which 
is after the pattern of the goodness of 
God. Right is that which is in har- 
mony with creative truth. Right is 
the way that mankind is created to live. 
It is the divine order in creation. It 
is the way God would do and that He 
would have us do that we may fulfil 
the purpose of our creation. Wrong 
is the way mankind is not created to 
live. It is the disorder that is, by the 
very nature of things, contrary to di- 
vine order. Wrong is disorder, and the 
way in which, if we live, the ends of 
creation will be defeated in us. 

Good and evil with man originate in 
a similar way. Good is the effect of 
right living. Evil is the effecl; of wrong 
living. Good is the state of life that 
God has created us for. Evil is what 
He did not create us for. Goodness and 



108 DIVINE SELECTION 

truth are the nature of God and what 
is in harmony with Him. Evil and 
wrong are what is not of the nature 
of God and not in harmony with Him. 
Goodness and truth are absolute in the 
nature and substance of God, from 
whom originates the idea of goodness 
and truth, together with all their qual- 
ities that appertain to mankind. Wrong 
and evil have their existence in the 
free will of man, whereby he can, if 
he choose, deny God and live in nat- 
ural and spiritual disorder. 

It is from such perceptions of inevi- 
table fa6l that it can be asserted with- 
out reservation or qualification that 
nothing ethical or moral has a materi- 
alistic or natural origin. Truly it may 
so appear, as a stick seems bent when 
immersed in water ; but the primary 
cause is the absoluteness of good and 
truth in God. 

Now if Ave ask what can we know 
of the Goodness and Truth of God, 



RIGHT AND WRONG 109 

which are infinite and consequently in- 
comprehensible to the finite, the reply 
is that goodness and truth are known 
by revelation from God in whom they 
are. As goodness and truth exist only 
in and from God, they can be known 
only by revelation from Him. So must 
have originated the truth and good in 
every religion, howsoever much it may 
subsequently have become adulterated. 
The religion of progressive civiliza- 
tion of to-day is founded upon the rev- 
elation of the goodness and truth of 
God in Jesus Christ, which is a pre- 
sentation of the divine nature so vast, 
so sublime, so complete, that no man 
can fully fathom it. The infinite char- 
after of absolute Goodness and Truth, 
the infinite nature of God, in no wise 
precludes the possibility of finite and 
accommodated revelation of divine na- 
ture and life, and of God : nor is it 
thereby made impossible for the infi- 
nite goodness and truth of God to be 



no DIVINE SELECTION 

so embodied in revelation that man- 
kind may get finite, yet true presenta- 
tions of the goodness and truth of God. 
If infinite Love could not reveal itself, 
it would not be infinite. To the ques- 
tion, How can the finite know the infi- 
nite, or God, the reply is, the life and 
character of Jesus Christ is a revela- 
tion of God, a revelation of His good- 
ness and truth, accommodated to every 
possible state of willing receptivity. 

Knowledge of the absoluteness of 
good and truth in God makes clear the 
origin and nature of wrong and evil. 
Wrong and evil have their origin in 
the misuse of the free will of man, 
whereby he can, if he choose, deny God 
and live in disorder. Wrong is the vio- 
lation of divine order in which God 
created mankind to live. Evil is the 
effect of disorder. There can be no 
virtue conceivable without its opposite, 
for the possibility of the opposite with 
man makes virtue attainable. Or it may 



RIGHT AND WRONG in 

be said that wrong is the opposite of 
truth or right, and evil is the opposite 
of good. As right is the way good does, 
wrong is the way evil a<5ts. 

The question may here arise, If good- 
ness and truth are absolute in God, 
they being His substance and form, have 
evil and falsity an absolute existence? 
Certainly they could not exist as qual- 
ities unless there is something sub- 
stantial of which they are qualities. 
Yet their origin is far different from 
that of goodness and truth. While 
goodness and truth are absolute, eter- 
nal, and infinite, because God is, evil 
and falsity are finite, and have their 
beginning in time. For they are not 
absolute in themselves, but derive their 
existence from the perversion of good- 
ness and truth from God. They now 
have their permanent existence in the 
substance and form of perverted hu- 
man nature. The essence of evil and 
wrong is therefore the substance and 



H2 DIVINE SELECTION 

form of evil things and of the mind of 
evil persons. 

The many grades of right and wrong 
and of good and evil appearing in the 
complexity of social relations may give 
the appearance that good and bad, true 
and false are merely relative terms, orig- 
inating in human fancy, while a more 
searching mind will see that goodness 
and truth are fixed in the eternal sub- 
stance and form of God's Divine Hu- 
manity. 



CHAPTER XII 

The Office 

of 

Revelation 

THE field of Revelation is the 
spiritual. Its office is to make 
known the otherwise unknow- 
able. The soul, the spiritual 
world, life after death, and God, can 
be known in the first instance by rev- 
elation only. As long- ago as the days 
of Job it was of general knowledge 
that man unaided by revelation could 
know nothing of these things. Says 
Zophar, " Canst thou by searching find 
out God?" 

If by scientific investigation spiritual 
things could be searched out, revela- 
tion would be unnecessary, and the 
economy of creation would have with- 
held it. If it were true, as some urge, 
that only the scientifically demonstrated 



ii4 DIVINE SELECTION 

can be known, there would be an abso- 
lute bar to any progress in things higher 
than the grosser material, for only the 
natural and external fa<5t is subject to 
scientific proof. 

How thoroughly the limitations of 
scientific proof would forbid progress 
and dwarf faculty, can be appreciated 
only by those who recognize that there 
is a mind higher than the natural part 
of man that deals merely with natural 
science and ponderable things, a mind 
to which the invisible and spiritual are 
as real and comprehensible as matter 
is to the corporeal senses. The exist- 
ence of faculties that perceive and han- 
dle spiritual things as the senses do 
material things, makes the natural mind 
the mere handmaid of the higher and in- 
terior mind, in the power of which it is 
a menial servant doing on the material 
plane the bidding of the man himself. 

It is not because spiritual things are 
uncertain and vague that science does 



OFFICE OF REVELATION 115 

not appertain to them, but for the rea- 
son that spiritual things are above the 
material to which science by definition 
is confined. The facts of science are 
the evidence addressed to the corporeal 
senses. Spiritual knowledge, the knowl- 
edge of causes, is addressed to the 
senses of the soul. Paul gave definite 
expression to the principle involved in 
the discernment of interior causes. 
"The natural man receiveth not the 
things of the Spirit of God, for they 
are foolishness unto him ; neither can 
he know them, because they are spirit- 
ually discerned." Yet if " scientific " 
is used in the sense of rational, reason- 
able, or knowable, there is nothing more 
scientific than the knowledge of spirit- 
ual things and interior causes. For 
not only must spiritual knowledge be 
mentally grasped and seen through, 
but it must be in harmony with nat- 
ural science, receive its full support, 
and be illustrated by it. Spiritual knowl- 



n6 DIVINE SELECTION 

edge, to be knowledge, must be clear, 
comprehensible, and as conclusive as 
any knowledge. 

Because science, in the generally ac- 
cepted sense, does not reach up to spir- 
itual things, does not deal with that 
invisible and intangible to the corpo- 
real senses, revelation is imperative, 
and for this reason it is given. Reve- 
lation brings to the perceptions what 
reason can confirm. Revelation is the 
guide of reason and the goal to which 
it should ascend. 

Primarily the spiritual is the subject 
of revelation, because reason unaided by 
revelation would never suggest even so 
much as the existence of the spiritual. 

Because the spiritual lies beyond that 
plane of the mind which science occu- 
pies, it should not be thought that the 
spiritual is more uncertain, speculative 
or imaginative than science itself. There 
is another plane of the mind as much 
higher than the scientific plane as the 



OFFICE OF REVELATION 117 

scientific plane is higher than the sen- 
sual plane. 

Science appeals to the senses of the 
body. Its facts are gathered by the 
physical senses and are put together 
by the lowest order of reasoning. The 
sensual mind can draw accurate con- 
clusions on the natural plane, but not 
a single conclusion can the sensual mind 
form in regard to causes on a plane 
higher than that material plane on 
which the senses operate. If we had 
no other faculties than those of the 
senses and sensual reasoning, human 
development must have stopped with 
science. But such has not been the case 
because the corporeal senses and the 
natural-rational are but the lowest agen- 
cies of the mind. They are to the in- 
ternal mind what the hands and feet are 
to the body. 

Revelation is not addressed to the 
corporeal senses, but to perception and 
judgment. It appeals to the human, 



n8 DIVINE SELECTION 

and implies a higher development of man 
and a more interior opening of his facul- 
ties. Revelation is addressed to what in 
the Sensist are the " eyes that see not/* 
the " ears that hear not," and the " un- 
derstandings that do not understand." 

There is a perception from interior 
enlightenment that is the guide of rea- 
son. The office of reason is relatively 
lower than perception, for reason does 
not lead perception, but follows it. 
Reason neither discovers nor sees, but 
confirms what perception recognizes as 
true. Perception sees through reason, 
arranges its facts, and corrects its er- 
rors. The conclusions of reason are 
the beginnings with perception. The 
office of reason is therefore not to lead 
perception, but to confirm its observa- 
tion. If reason controls perception, the 
man is bound down to the senses and 
is their servant. If perception leads 
reason, the senses become the servant, 
the man is the master, and the way is 



OFFICE OF REVELATION 119 

open for a higher enlightenment. The 
difference between a false reasoner and 
a true reasoner is that in the former 
the senses are above and rule the rea- 
son. In the latter intelligence is above 
and rules the reason. 

Unaided by revelation it can but be 
concluded that all our sciences, " all our 
art, Plato, Shakespeare, Newton and 
Raphael, are potential in the fires of 
the sun." * Revelation rescues us not 
only from ancient sun-worship, but also 
from this equally dangerous sun-worship 
of modern times. To enlightened rea- 
son the doctrine that the sun will burn 
out and the earth freeze, is as pitiable 
a faith as the most fanciful superstition 
of the savage. That man's career is 
ended by death is as impossible as the 
creation of the earth by itself. That 
material force could evolve the universe 
by natural selection is more ludicrous 
than the healing power of fetiches. 

* Professor Tyndal, " Fragments of Science," p. 163. 



120 DIVINE SELECTION 

It is the office of revelation to ad- 
dress the higher faculties of intelligence 
and judgment and to provide spiritual 
fac~ts and things that rescue from the 
inevitable conclusion of sensual reason- 
ings. Revelation shows us that science, 
art, and human ability are not poten- 
tial in the sun, but that they and all 
faculty and power are absolute in the 
Creator, coming to us from Him and 
unfolding out of the spiritual sunshine 
that He sends upon the evil and upon 
tne good. Revelation not only opens 
a new world of interior causes and 
realities, but it also discovers human 
faculties that can cognize them and en- 
ter a life of spiritual understandings 
and blessings through intelligence from 
Him who is " the light of the world." 

It is evident from history that there 
has never been a time when man did 
not claim to have revelation in some 
form, and even spoken "by the mouth 
of His holy prophets, which have been 



OFFICE OF REVELATION 121 

since the world began." There is no 
reason for doubting and every reason 
for believing that the world has ever 
had revelation adapted to its condition. 
The fountain of revelation in the world 
to-day is that Sacred Scripture, called 
the Bible, or, more reverently and ap- 
propriately, the Word. Its own claim 
is that it is the Word of God from 
God to man. It may appear imperfect 
from the literal and historical stand- 
point, yet it does not purport to teach 
historical fa6ls, but rather by means of 
facl: and fi6lion to embody spiritual 
principles in a form accessible to man. 
This the Word does without error as 
to spiritual truth, to which the literal his- 
tory is accommodated when necessary. 
Though the Word appear faulty to 
some, it is what should be expected, 
for even the providence that is good 
to all is criticised adversely, and the 
laws that govern human kind are called 
unequal in the dispensation of justice. 



122 DIVINE SELECTION 

Perfect man would find the Word per- 
fect as a medium of the revelation of 
spiritual truth. It is a necessary con- 
sequence that the non-spiritual, looking 
from the standpoint of self and meas- 
uring with false standards, should re- 
gard the Word of God erroneous and 
inadequate ; but the errors are in the 
view-point of the individual, and not 
in the Word. 

The Word is a perpetual source of 
revelation. 

In the Old Testament particularly 
the relation of God to man obedient to 
His law and disobedient is fully exempli- 
fied, and the principles of the provi- 
dence over us are set forth. However 
barbarous the story may appear, the 
spirit and the truth are there. In the 
New Testament, the laws of life here, 
the nature of death, the spiritual world, 
the resurrection of the person unchanged, 
the life everlasting, the love of God, 
are as fully defined and declared as 



OFFICE OF REVELATION 123 

infinite wisdom could express them. 
The Word is the fountain of all such 
conceptions. If these things were not 
set forth in Scripture through revela- 
tion, or if no record of their revelation 
had been made, we would know no 
more of them than do the beasts of the 
field : but being set forth in the Word, 
or in revelation, human knowledge of 
spiritual things gets its start. There 
man obtains his first conceptions of 
things that are above the animal. 

The Word has met opposition from 
its beginning, cunning and subtile as 
well as open and blatant, from avowed 
enemy and pretended friend. When 
infidelity, working under one guise, has 
been found out, rendered unpopular, 
and rejected, it has been quick to ar- 
ray itself in novel garments and assume 
a new name. 

The term agnosticism has now, in 
public esteem, become quite synony- 
mous with infidelity, and few care to 



124 DIVINE SELECTION 

be included in that class. And so the 
same spirit reappears under the new 
name of " Higher Criticism." 

At first the so-called "higher criti- 
cism " was mild and tentative. But a 
short time only has been necessary to dis- 
close that in essence, spirit, argument, 
and conclusion, it is nothing other than 
the old-time infidelity of the Atheists, 
with whom it originated, clothed in 
a new vesture that it might appear 
respectable, and gain entrance into Chris- 
tian lives. 

The errors of the " higher criticism " 
originate in an absolutely wrong con- 
ception of the fundamental principles 
upon which the Word is written and 
of what it is intended to teach and to 
do, as well as of how it is to do it. 

The divinity of the Word in no wise 
rests upon the validity of reputed, finite 
authorship. It proclaims its own au- 
thorship and penmen in sufficient par- 
ticularity. " The Lord gave the Word : 



OFFICE OF REVELATION 125 

great was the company of those that 
published it." Its divinity rests in 
the spirit of truth contained in and re- 
flected through the literal narrative. 
Its purport is not to teach historical 
facts, but by means of historical facts 
and fiction to weave a garment that 
invests otherwise inexpressible, divine 
truth, and reflects it as the clouds do 
the colors that are in the sun. 

The office of the Pentateuch would 
not be affected if there had never been 
a Moses, and the five books had been 
written by John the Baptist. Nor would 
the Word in one iota fail if it should 
be proved that Josephus wrote the en- 
tire volume, any more than the story of 
the Prodigal Son would lose its import 
if its historical facts were entire fiction. 

The essence of the Word is entirely 
above and within the human author- 
ship and form, just as a nut-meat is 
within the shell. Yet its essence rests 
upon the external form as the teach- 



126 DIVINE SELECTION 

ings of an allegory are founded upon 
the words and elements of the narrative. 

Strange that it cannot be seen that 
though the Word is criticised, ques- 
tioned, and doubted ; though it be 
called antiquated and unsuited to pres- 
ent needs, it yet goes on, the most po- 
tent, effective, inspiring, and living of 
all things, doing its work of enlighten- 
ing, comforting, and blessing as per- 
fectly as infinite wisdom and love can, 
and at the same time give to each in- 
tellectual and spiritual freedom to be- 
lieve or to reject and to crucify. 

The first requisite of judgment in re- 
gard to the Word is that we ascertain 
the true purpose that it is intended to 
fulfill. A correct conception in this 
regard shows that it does not return 
void unto Him who gave it, but that as 
gently and quietly as nature brings forth 
our bread, so the Word accomplishes 
what the Father pleases and prospers 
in the thing whereto He sent it. 



OFFICE OF REVELATION 127 

The value of the volumes that we 
know under the title of Shakespeare 
are instructive and valuable primarily 
because they so vividly, accurately, and 
fully portray the affections, thoughts, 
and passions of the natural man, which 
we call human nature. But is their 
value as a teaching force one whit less- 
ened if it should be proved that they 
were written by Lord Bacon ? If their 
authorship were thrown into doubt, 
who wrote them would be a matter of 
idle and worthless curiosity to him who 
cared only for their intrinsic worth. 
The Word is valuable because it vividly, 
accurately, and fully portrays the affec- 
tions, thoughts, and passions not only 
of the natural man, but also of the 
spiritual man and of God. It reveals 
not only human nature, but spiritual 
nature, angelic nature, and the Divine 
nature. The Word ought not in the 
least to be diminished as a teaching, 
spiritualizing power if Providence had 



128 DIVINE SELECTION 

formed the same through the agency 
of any other than the reputed pen- 
men. To those who hunger and thirst 
for the righteousness of its spirit, who 
were the mere scribes is a matter of 
idle and worthless curiosity ; for the 
tests of its divinity are in the light, 
joy, and peace of God's presence in the 
universe and in the heart, revealed by 
the humble, reverent, prayerful living 
of its teachings. No one is competent 
to question the divinity of the Word 
until he has found it wanting in its self- 
imposed proof, " If any man will do 
His will, he shall know of the doctrine." 
Nor can the truth of the Word be ad- 
equately tested from any other stand- 
point than that of individual obedience 
to its principles. No one ever honestly 
made this test and failed to find through 
the Word peace and God. 

Whatever errors may appear in the 
letter of the Word, when viewed from 
a natural, scientific, or historical stand- 



OFFICE OF REVELATION 129 

point, its internal is spirit and life. 
From the standpoint of its spirit and 
life it should be determined whether or 
not the Bible is the source of revela- 
tion from God to man to-day. When 
studied as a book whose purport is to 
teach history and science, it is natural 
that one should become agnostic or fall 
into the sophistry and the consequent 
apostacy of the pseudo-learning of the 
higher criticism — a costly fad, but one 
whose days are already numbered. But 
when the Word is viewed as a book 
whose purpose is to teach spiritual 
truth ; to teach each that amount of 
spiritual truth that he will live up to, 
and at the same time withhold what 
he will not live up to and so bring 
upon himself the guilt of profanation ; 
when it is read as a means of leading 
men away from evils and into a true 
life whereby he may receive in his 
heart the love of God that cannot be 
expressed in type; when its letter is 



130 DIVINE SELECTION 

taken as an avenue to that other and 
internal revelation of the wisdom and 
love of God to the heart; when it is 
put to the self-imposed tests of its Di- 
vinity—the living of it— it is sufficiently 
evident that the Word is the source 
of Divine Revelation, accommodated 
to the eternal needs of human kind, 
and ever yielding to them the wisdom 
and love of God in ratio to their as- 
cending states of regeneration. 



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